Horror Extreme Movie Catalog

I am the world's biggest 3-D movie nut. As 3-D movies of the golden era go, "Gorilla at Large" does not command the same respect "House of Wax," "Kiss Me Kate," "Hondo," and others do. But for entertainment value, it's a real contender.

Take the cast: where else would you expect to find Cameron Mitchell, Lee J. Cobb, Raymond Burr, Anne Bancroft, and Lee Marvin sharing the screen with George Barrows in a gorilla suit? Nowhere!

And take the setting: the long-gone Nu-Pike amusement park in Long Beach, California. The scenes shot on location, though fleeting, offer a trip through time to a bygone era. Picture Walt Disney strolling through here for ideas on what to do-- and what not to do-- in the project he was then building down in Anaheim! (I notice there are no live gorillas at Disneyland. Coincidence?)

And, while you won't be getting stereoscopic 3-D on this disc, the colors are every bit as lively and vivid as the archival prints screened at recent 3-D Film Expos in Hollywood.

As for "Mystery on Monster Island," I haven't watched it. Perhaps you and I both would do well to consider it an unrequested bonus.

Like the other reviewers here, I really only bought this set because I dearly wanted GORILLA AT LARGE. Honestly, the less said about MYSTERY ON MONSTER ISLAND (1981) the better. Well, at least it stars Peter Cushing but the movie is a complete snooze. Better stick to men in ape suits and Anne Bancroft prancing about in a sexy trapeze outfit.

...which leads us back to GORILLA AT LARGE...

Filmed at the height of the 3-D craze, GORILLA AT LARGE (1954) isn't a horror film as much as it is a mystery crime thriller. Fox contract players Cameron Mitchell and Anne Bancroft star and add lots of extra gloss to this tawdry tale of a series of murders in a circus. The setting is a circus called the Garden of Evil, where the star attraction is Goliath, a gorilla (and played very obviously by a man wearing a chimp suit). Anne Bancroft is Mlle. Laverne, a trapeze artist whose whole act revolves around swinging above Goliath's enclosure. When a series of grisly murders start taking place, all fingers point to Goliath, but things are never what they appear to be, especially in a seedy dive like the Garden of Evil...

Anne Bancroft, paying off her 20th Century-Fox starlet commitments, gives a splendid performance. She's matched every step of the way by co-stars Raymond Burr, Cameron Mitchell and Lee J. Cobb. Co-produced by Panoramic Productions, GORILLA AT LARGE is lots of fun. Extra features include an animated photo gallery, a brief B&W trailer and the original 'Intermission' titlecard.

It's a pity that the only way we can get GORILLA AT LARGE is by buying the hopelessly hokey MYSTERY ON MONSTER ISLAND as well, but just be glad this classic gem has finally surfaced on DVD.